Hanni Liang

Breathtaking silence in the hall. One is sitting with the back to the piano, one is sitting under the piano. Others are just harking while sitting around the young pianist. Whenever Hanni Liang plays piano, she opens her soul to the music and to her audience and enchant her listeners with a unique experience.

“We want to experience the music together. Everyone on his individual way. While sitting, while lying with the eyes closed or opened. Tonight everything is possible.”

That’s how the young pianist is motivating her listeners to create an inimitable experience of music. Hanni Liang is not only known for her exceptional musical sense, her brilliant technique, but also for her fascination for the tone colors and her individual interpretations.

The virtuosity and fresh approach of Hanni Liang, coupled with her charismatic stage presence have regularly been praised by journalists of the music world.

“For me, music means being free. So my listeners should feel free as well while listening and experiencing my music. There shouldn’t be any rules or seating arrangements.”

The 2017/18 season sees her in the upcoming Klavierfestival Ruhr. Another highlight is her debut in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Aziz Shokhakimov. She will also be part of a project with the Theater Vorpommern. Other concerts include the Sendesaal Bremen and a concert tour through China.

In 2016/17 season she played in China’s most important concert halls such as the Forbidden City Hall in Peking and the Qintai Concert Hall in Wuhan. Furthermore she gave concerts in the famous Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg and was part of the Trans-Siberian Art Festival of Vadim Repin. Last but not least, she gave her successful debut at the renown Klavierfestival Ruhr and was heard with Brahms’ second piano concerto in the Glocke in Bremen. She was honored to host the finale of TONALi2017 in the Elbphilharmonie.

Hanni Liang was born in Bielefeld, Germany in 1993, receiving her first piano lessons when she was eight years old, before becoming a student of Prof. Barbara Szczepanska after displaying rapid progress. She completed her Bachelor of Music and an additional Bachelor of Arts at the Robert Schumann Conservatory as well as at the Conservatory of Music, Drama and Media Hanover, mainly with Prof. Bernd Goetzke at the latter institute.

Prizes include First Prizes at the “Rotary Piano Competition”, the “Van Bremen Piano Competition” and the “Concorso Pianistico Internazionale di Roma”. Upcoming concerts take her soon to Austria, China, Spain, Italy and Poland, where she took part in the “International Music Festival Chopin”. Furthermore she will give concerts in Switzerland and at renowned music festivals in Germany, e.g. at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Best of NRW, Schumannfest, and Gezeitenkonzerte.

In 2010 she was elected as a “Young Steinway Artist” and received a Steinway Advancement Award. Further awards by e.g. the Dörken Stiftung, the Association for Westphalia Cultural Work, and the Bechstein and the Richard Wagner Foundation followed. In 2017 she was awarded a sponsorship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

Since 2013 she has been a successful TONALi-Musician and has displayed distinguished qualities in musical communication. TONALi shaped her further career development and affected her artistic persona. She is actively engaged in generating younger audiences for classical music and in furthering cultural education.

Her close collaboration with the German composer Manfred Trojahn led to the premiere of his piano piece Leise Gondeln and in 2015 to a recording of his Six Préludes. Hanni Liang describes her debut CD in the following words:

“The Préludes, which are reminiscent of Debussy, are full of wonderful timbres and conjure up atmospheres which continue to fascinate me and all who listen to this music. It is like being under a hypnotic spell.”

The regular collaboration with the Swiss-Uruguayan pianist Homero Francesch also helped shape her essential understanding of the language of music. Further influences were provided by distinguished musicians such as Jacques Rouvier, Michel Beroff, Lilya Zilberstein, and John Perry.